Category Archives: books

Book Reviews: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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We Have Always Lived in the CastleWe Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“‘Merricat,’ said Constance, ‘would you like a cup of tea?’

‘No,’ said Merricat, ‘you’ll poison me.'”

I first discovered this book my junior year in high school, and I’ve been addicted to it ever since.

The book has been described as “a love song to agoraphobia,” and that seems just about right. Merricat and her older sister Constance live in their beautiful but mostly abandoned house in the woods. They used to live there with their family- parents, aunt, younger brother- but they all died a mysterious, painful death eight years earlier. The two sisters live a pleasant life, where Constance cooks and cares for their infirm Uncle Julian and Merricat protects them in her own way, but before long one small thing changes and it slowly destroys everything.

Merricat is one of my favorite characters ever. She’s twisted, she’s childish, she’s an unreliable narrator, and she makes for a fascinating read. She ambles through the story like she’s not a part of it, but she propels everything along. Apparently there’s a stage version of this book; I think Merricat is my dream role.

The mood of this book is spectacular- moody and airy, beautiful and frightening all at once. The characters are fascinating. The story is mysterious. I could read this book over and over again and never get bored. It steals my attention every time.

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Book Reviews: The Handmaid’s Tale

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The Handmaid's TaleThe Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve heard a lot about this book, and I finally gave in and read it. I read it all in one sitting, when I was supposed to be asleep, but I just couldn’t close it.

The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a cold, disjointed, modern Puritan society. The government has crumbled in place of a theocracy and women are reduced to chattel. You can only hold so many positions- a wife of a Commander, an “econowife,” a Martha (a servant), an Aunt, or a handmaid. A handmaid is a woman still fertile in a barren society; she is assigned to live in a household for a two-year period and must try to become pregnant in the stead of the barren wife. Three failed attempts, and you get sent to the colonies.

We know very little about the narrator, catching only bits and pierces of her real self through her story. There is an urgency, almost a desperation, in how the story is told. When the book ends you feel unsettled, both by the fear you have for the heroine and the terrible thought that this might happen to us.

I’m glad I read this. It’s an amazing book, the best kind- the kind that makes you think. That said, the next time I feel like reading something light, I don’t think I’ll reach for this first.

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Book Reviews: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar ChildrenMiss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I kept walking past this book every time I did some shopping in Target and zeroing in on the fascinating cover. I just knew that this book was meant for me. I was so excited to finally load it onto my Kindle. And yet…while it was good, it was not what I expected.

I started to read this book with little prickles of excitement in my spine. I was prepared for a creepy book, the sort of book that would make me cuddle under the covers with my cat while I hope the shadows don’t leap out to get me. The opening was beautifully promising- the foreboding setup, the eerie photographs, the brutal incident in the very first chapter. I didn’t like the protagonist much, but I was prepared to see him grow and change as the story progressed.

And then…I got lost. The spooky tale I was expecting got lost in a myriad of eccentric one-off characters. The mystery unfolded too quickly, but crumbled in a maze of weird magic timey-wimey stuff and Welsh jargon. The love story was just plain awkward. And the protagonist I was hoping to root for was stuck as Bratty McSulkpants.

There were some absolutely brilliant moments in the book- a major plot twist involving a particular character made me gasp aloud, for instance, and a scene in the fishmonger’s shop had me scrabbling to hug my cat. For those moments, I think the book merits the three stars. But I was so torn between lauding the great moments and despairing over my disappointment over what I was hoping the book would be.

The book ends with clear plans for a sequel, and I’ll probably pick it up and read it. Hopefully it’ll take all the brilliant high points of this book and leave behind the muddle.

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Book Reviews: The Help

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The HelpThe Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started reading The Help on my brand new Kindle on Christmas afternoon and finished it the next morning. I enjoyed it, I really did, but I feel like there’s an unsettling kind of unevenness to it. One second it’s lighthearted and witty, the next it’s serious and shocking. I finally decided what The Help reminds me of- it’s like Hairspray for grownups.

I love the character of Skeeter. I feel like a lot of the unevenness of the story has to do with Skeeter’s awakening- she has been in her pretty little bubble for so long and the illusion is just beginning to shatter for her, so the story bounces from the funny moments to serious along with her growth as a character.

I do wish there was more resolution- an epilogue that gives the final explanation on what happened to everyone. I don’t think the book merits or needs a sequel, but I want to know how Aibileen’s writing career went, if Minny really left Leroy, if Skeeter made it successfully in New York- and if she ever revealed that she wrote the book.

The most interesting party of reading the book, however, was talking to my two grandmothers-in-law afterwards. My husband and I were having dinner with the family, and they asked me about my Kindle, and when I told them I’d read The Help, they immediately told me how much they loved it, especially since that was their era. My sweet paternal grandmother-in-law said that when she was a young wife and mother in Tennessee, she actually had help- a woman who would come some afternoons to clean and watch the kids while she ran errands. “Now, I never mistreated anyone or was cruel, but it just made me realize…I never knew what was going on at home or what she was going through,” she told me. “She was just the help.” It was sort of mind-boggling to hear that- that at one point the world really was like it was in The Help, that it’s not merely made up for a work of poignant historical fiction.

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kivrinengle replied to your post: kivrinengle replied to your post: This series…

GRAURGH YES. The stupid freaking PIANO and the FAINTING and the WEEPING and the JADSKHOG AHSKJDBALK. I need to go hit something now.

ELSIE DINSMORE: MOST NOTABLE PANSY SINCE THE LATE 19th CENTURY.

Geez, I was like “JESUS WON’T CARE IF YOU PLAY THE PIANO ON A SUNDAY, ELSIE. JUST PLAY THE STUPID THING INSTEAD OF JUST SITTING THERE TILL YOU PASS OUT. GOD.”

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kivrinengle replied to your post: This series isn’t like the cliche vampire stories where they burn in the sun, this is actually a whole different kind of universe. But it’s reallly good, the authors always leave me wanting more. If you wanna read it check out the first book; Marked, by P.C and Kristin Cast.

ARGH ARGH ELSIE DINSMORE??? I thought I was the only one afflicted so. I HATED those books, and my mother kept making me read them before I could read anything of literary value.

ELSIE DINSMORE IS THE WORST LITERARY HEROINE OF ALL TIME.

OF ALL TIME.

SHE’S PROBABLY BELLA SWAN’S GREAT-GRANDMOTHER OR SOMETHING.

OR EDWARD’S MOM OR SOMETHING.

I WANTED TO PUNCH THAT GIRL IN THE FACE WITH HER OWN BIBLE.

THE PIANO SCENE. OH, DEAR MERCIFUL GOODNESS, MEG, DO YOU REMEMBER THE SCENE WITH THE PIANO?!?

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Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with failure. She SHOULD look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren’t like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.

Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long red braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper:

“Carrots! Carrots!”

Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!

She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears.

“You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!”

And then—thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and cracked it—slate not head—clear across.

Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable one. Everybody said “Oh” in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared open-mouthed at the tableau.